Governmental authorities follow money trails in order to interdict assets hidden by narco-traffickers; money launderers; Ponzi schemers; tax fraudsters & other determined criminals. During your asset search, you can similarly follow a money trail to track assets which have been hidden from you. You might detect a money trail by scrutinizing data
Your Asset Search & Trade-Based Money Laundering
If your adversary is using a business entity to conceal assets from you, one thing to look for is trade-based money laundering. A June 2006 report by the Financial Action Task Force explains that trade-based laundering schemes can include: the over or under-invoicing of goods or services; the over or under-shipping of goods; falsely describing
Your Search For Assets Hidden Offshore
When naming offshore havens for opening secret bank accounts, people usually mention Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, etc. Meanwhile, bank accounts in almost any country can be put to work to hide & place assets out of reach. “Using Multiple Jurisdictions To Launder Money” discussed a suspected scheme to bribe
Hiding Cash By Structuring Bank Deposits
In some situations, the transfer of large sums of cash is a red flag that assets have been hidden by money laundering. Government authorities therefore require banks to report their customers who transfer or exchange large sums of cash. For example, banks in the United States are required to report bank customers who deposit or
Divorce & Hidden Money: Panama Charly & Helga Glock’s Search For Assets
The Panama Papers Law Firm & Potential Money Laundering Risk
Last Wednesday, prosecutors in Panama seized dozens of computer servers belonging to the Panama Papers law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The prosecutors might be investigating whether Mossack Fonseca violated money laundering laws when it supposedly helped clients hide assets offshore. A U.S. State Department report published last month analyzed how money is laundered in Panama.
The Panama Papers & Your Asset Search
2008 was the first time I wrote an article mentioning hiding assets via a lawyer in Panama. The article was called “Bearer Shares & An Asset Search.” Although the facts at the article were sanitized & changed for privacy reasons, it described a divorcing husband in the U.S hiding assets from both his
Compartmentalization & An Asset Search
How do you hamper an asset search while hiding vast sums of money across the globe? You may be able to do this by compartmentalizing your actions. Using compartmentalization to fly under the radar is nothing new. For example, terrorists in Paris compartmentalized what they did before their heinous November 13, 2015 attack. This is
Searching For Assets Hidden By Lawyers
A trailer for the “Better Call Saul” show features the dry cleaner used by TV’s money laundering lawyer Saul Goodman. For me, the trailer highlights the fact that some lawyers hide their clients’ money by washing it via laundering links in a money laundering circuit. When lawyers wash large
Your Search For Assets & Nominee Incorporation Services
High net worth divorcing spouses, kleptocrats, bankruptcy debtors, judgment debtors, etc., can easily conceal their beneficially owned assets by utilizing Nominee Incorporation Services (“NIS”). Pages 63-64 of “The 2007 National Money Laundering Strategy” essentially explained that individuals may use NIS in schemes to hide assets through money laundering. Individuals sometimes hire